Oven, dryer, and other appliance manufacturers sometimes desire to equip the appliance with a “breakaway” hinge system such that excessive weight placed on the open door of the appliance will cause the door to “breakaway” or collapse such that the door moves beyond its fully opened (approximately horizontal) position rather than cause damage to the hinge system and/or cause the entire appliance to tip. In some cases, a stop is provided to limit breakaway movement and in others the door is allowed to pivot until it contacts the floor or other support surface supporting the appliance. Depending upon the exact design of the breakaway mechanism, the door breakaway condition can self-reset such that removal of the excessive weight from the appliance door will allow the door to return to its operative opened position (so as to lie in a plane that is approximately horizontal), or the door breakaway condition can be made persistent and thus require a manual reset of the breakaway mechanism by the appliance user or a service technician before the appliance door is again ready for use.
Known appliance door breakaway systems have been deemed to be sub-optimal for a wide variety of reasons, including cost, complexity, performance, size, and the like. As such, it has been deemed desirable to provide a new appliance door breakaway system that overcomes the above-noted deficiencies and others associated with known systems.